Frank Lautenberg: Newark suffering under Cory Booker

New Jersey Sen. Frank Lautenberg hit potential primary rival Cory Booker with a new line of attack today — his record as Newark’s mayor.

“He’s got a lot of work to do — a lot of work that should have been done and hasn’t been done,” Lautenberg said, telling National Journal that Newark is “in desperate need of attention” and suggesting it has suffered from neglect during the two-term tenure of the celebrity mayor.

Text Size

-

+

reset

“Maybe if the mayor can solidify the fact that he wants to improve Newark by being there, things would be different,” the 89-year-old senator said. “But he’s free to do as he wants to do.”

Booker’s record was the subject of a blistering New York Times late last year, and is viewed by some of the mayor’s critics in New Jersey as a potential weak point as he starts receiving scrutiny of a national political player.

Lautenberg is not a sure thing for another campaign, although he has yet to say whether he intends to retire. But he and his aides have made clear they feel like Booker is pushing him toward the exits, beginning with a senior aide’s remark to POLITICO that the Newark mayor was being “disrespectful.”

At the same time, early Democratic primary polls show Booker as the clear favorite for the seat.

Lautenberg waved off those numbers to NJ, saying the state’s voters “trust me…they’ve seen me hard at work constantly for now 28 years.”